There are three words that seem like they might be somewhat related, at least because they’re somewhat unusual and they rhyme: bludgeon, dudgeon, and curmudgeon.
“Bludgeon” is both a noun, meaning a heavy club, and a verb, meaning to hit someone or something with the club. It’s sometimes used figuratively to mean to force or coerce someone. For example, the phrase “the press bludgeoned the senator into admitting responsibility” doesn’t imply that anybody was actually beaten with a stick. “Bludgeon” appeared in the early 1700s, and nobody knows anything about where it came from.
“Dudgeon” is a state of feeling offended or resentful. It’s still in use but in decline. The most common usage is something like “he was in high dudgeon after learning he didn’t receive an invitation.” Nobody has a clue where “dudgeon” originated. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that it might possibly be related to “endugine,” which meant about the same thing, but that doesn’t help much because “endugine” is also a word of unknown origin. Moreover, “endugine” appeared in print exactly one time, in 1638. That’s some time later than the first appearance of “dudgeon,” which was in the mid-1500s. There’s another, even more obscure meaning of dudgeon: it referred to the wooden handle of a knife or dagger. Shakespeare used it in that sense in “Macbeth:” “I see thee still, / And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, / Which was not so before.“ In later times “dudgeon” was sometimes used to mean the whole knife, as long as it had a wooden handle.
“Curmudgeon” is a grouchy or bad-tempered person; someone who complains a lot. And guess what; nobody knows where this one came from either. It first appeared in the 1570s, and the best guess anyone has about its origin is, literally, a guess. The Online Etymology Dictionary says it might be the result of bad handwriting by Samuel Johnson; he meant to write the French phrase “coeur mechant” (evil heart) but dripped ink on it or something. This explanation, it’s explained, is “not taken seriously.” Another possibility is that “curmudgeon” is related to the Gaelic word “muigean,” which means a disagreeable person, and the “cur” at the beginning is a variation of “ker,” which is an intensifier in words like “kerplop” and “kersplash.” You can also find a variation in “kaboom.. This theory doesn’t seem to hold much water either.
So there you have it. Three words of varying obscurity united in their mysterious origins and the fact that they end in the unusual (for English) sound “-udgeon.” They’re probably not related at all, but on the other hand, nobody knows!
